Evening, St. Thomas

As we were dressing for the evening, Captain Pomata announced that the ship would be slowing significantly and then turning in a bit of a circle because a small dinghy had been spotted adrift just 30 minutes or so off the St. Thomas coast. Now this is something we don't encounter every day. The ship pulled up very close to the dinghy so that those on the bridge could look down through the glass floor in the bridge wings to see down into the dinghy. The port side decks were lined with spectators, dressed in everything from swimsuits to tuxes (and it was the hot, sunny side of the ship). Eventually, Captain Pomata announced that no one was in the dinghy (we later learned there was a scuba air tank in it), and that he had been instructed to stay along side while a Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched from Puerto Rico. Why it didn't come from St. Thomas (still easily within view) is anyone's guess. We ended up waiting about an hour for the Coast Guard to arrive.

Meanwhile, there were no bridge officers available for the Captains Circle party, although eventually the staff captain was able to attend and he brought us up to date.

Such excitement! We can only hope it was simply a dinghy that floated away from a buoy and not that a dive equipment failure that left a diver in distress under the water.

Meanwhile, we are now two hours late in our journey to Grand Turk, although Captain Pomata said he was trying to make up lost time for an on time arrival at 1pm tomorrow. We'll see, but I'm not concerned. If it had turned out that this was a rescue situation, being a few hours late into Grand Turk would have been inconsequential.

Dinner was lobster for me, beef Wellington for G. Entertainment was not to be; although we're moving our clocks back an hour tonight to EST, the day has caught up with us and sleep is our only option.

Photo: from the Captains Circle party and the staff captain explaining the ongoing dinghy situation to us

St. Thomas, continued

More about our day, from the beginning...

For whatever reason, the Emerald Princess was scheduled to arrive at Crown Bay one hour earlier than usual, at 7am, and for the first time ever, we were able to catch the 8am ferry to Water Island, instead of the 10:30am ferry. I was up at 4am and never fell back asleep (which explains why it's 8:30pm and I'm in bed already). When the alarm went off at 6am, I thought for sure that G would change his mind about the early ferry, but he didn't. We grabbed a quick breakfast from the buffet and enjoyed it while sitting on the Terrace Deck as we arrived at Crown Bay. By 7:30 we were walking to the Crown Bay Marina.

The rest of the day progressed exactly as so many Water Island days last winter (see my September post for more photos). The only differences were that Heidi's Beach BBQ is now set up on the side of the beach where the excursion boats anchor, and that there is now a golf cart rental ($35 per day) available, something we definitely want to do later this winter. We've never explored Water Island beyond the road to Honeymoon Beach.

I swam and snorkeled a lot, and although I stayed out of the sun most of the rest of the time and used SPF50 spray on my back, I must have missed a spot because I did get burned on a small area of my back. We're planning to snorkel tomorrow on Grand Turk...a rash guard will be a must.

We sailed at 4pm, and in another unusual twist, tonight was formal night (they're not generally scheduled on port days). While we looked a bit like beach rats at 4pm, by 5pm we were formally dressed and on our way to our Captains Circle party for this cruise.

Photo 1: my view for much of the day

Photo 2: for the umpteenth time, a photo of the Emerald Princess docked at Crown Bay, taken from Water Island

Photo 4: Phillip's Landing is the ferry dock on Water Island

Photo 5: G risking a finger to feed an iguana (some things never change)

Photo 6: a yacht transport was also docked at Crown Bay

More Water Island photos

Photo 1: I swam along the buoy lines and the crossed over to the rocks on the left and snorkeled up to the white boat lift in the distance and back.

Photos 2-4: Honeymoon Beach as seen from the water

Day 18: St. Thomas

I am sitting on Water Island as I type this first part of the posts about today. I won't write a lot now...I'll just send some photos of early morning on Honeymoon Beach.

(We took the 8am ferry, a first for us, but the Emerald arrived in St. Thomas at 7am both last cruise and this one. It required a bit of preplanning and an alarm clock but we made it, and since the next ferry is our usual 10:30am one, we feel like we have bonus time here today!)

Photos: Honeymoon Beach on Water Island- November 24 in our world.

Evening- St. Kitts

We had a wonderful day. Not an exciting day, not an adventurous day but an altogether restful, relaxing day in St. Kitts. Yes, we had a relaxing day here last cruise too. Because of the way these islands appear in our itinerary, after two days at sea at the beginning of the cruise, we arrive in Antigua ready to run. Then we recuperate in St. Lucia, play hard again in Barbados, and collapse while we're in St. Kitts. I told G that, on one of these Eastern Caribbean cruises, we need to hold back on Antigua and Barbados and hit St. Lucia and St. Kitts hard.

But that's difficult. There are so many easy (inexpensive and close to the ship) options on Antigua, Barbados and St Thomas, fewer on St. Lucia and fewer still on St. Kitts.

But, future planning considerations aside, today in St. Kitts was HOT. Like sweat rolling down your spine when you're sitting in the shade hot. And with unrelenting sun, there wasn't a lot of shade to be found. We stood at the front of the ship on Deck 16 while the ship slowly approached the port, and it was so pleasant, and shady with a gentle breeze. But as the ship neared the dock, it got noticeably hotter. We walked off right away hoping to use free wifi while it was still fast, but the Carnival Victory was in port ahead of us, and its crew was already on Captain Jack's wifi en force. We didn't last too long- it was that hot- but decided that the only two acceptable places to spend the day were on a beach or on the ship. We chose the latter and were back on the ship by noon.

And what followed was a most pleasant afternoon. We first ate lunch in the buffet, and sat there for so long that I told G all we needed were cards or dominos and we'd be turning into bona fide old people. We then decamped- G for a hot tub (no surprise there) and me for the Terrace Pool less than 15 steps from our cabin. There were lots of available loungers, but I was most comfortable on my float in the pool, listening to an audiobook. (Did I mention yesterday that we saw a teen in the terminal in Barbados with an iPhone in a Lifeproof case with a bright orange Lifeproof life jacket? It's not just me...).

About 4pm we showered for dinner, but put our grubby shorts and t-shirts on and walked back off the ship into the Port Zante area. By then the wifi had speeded up considerably as we were the only two people using it. But the funnest thing was that most of the cruise passengers were back on the ships, and Port Zante's bars and shops were packed with locals out for a fun Friday night. Contrary to what I might have believed, that area is not just for the benefit of cruise passengers...it gets a lot of business after 5pm too.

All on board was at 5:30pm, just minutes before sunset, so we boarded the ship at the last minute and raced up to the Promenade Deck to get photos. The day was gorgeous right to the end.

It was Italian night in the dining room, and we were happy, thrilled, ecstatic- you name it- to have the alternate Italian menu tonight (and not the same one as last cruise). G ordered his favorite fontina chicken and I had seafood stew and happiness reigned at our table. We decided to postpone dessert and coffee until after the show (production show Boogie Shoes at 7:15pm), but caught Gordon and the Emerald Princess Orchestra playing Dixieland in the Piazza on the way back to the dining room. Gordon (an Ohio State fan) said it was all he could do to play the a song called the Wolverine Blues. I hope the Wolverines aren't blue tomorrow night, but I'm not optimistic... Still, GO BLUE!!

Headwaiter Mirko seated us at a table in Sutti's section again, and we enjoyed our coffee and dessert (tiramisu...yum!!). There is much to choose from tonight (island night party, Jazzio in the Adagio, etc.), but we arrive in St. Thomas at 7am tomorrow morning and are all packed up for a day on a beach, hopefully Honeymoon Beach on Water Island and hopefully reached via the 8am ferry. Or the 10:30am ferry. We'll see how we feel when the alarm goes off at 6am.

Photos 3 to 5: production show Boogie Shoes

Photo 6: during Dixieland in the Piazza, we were also entertained by these little ones, ages 2, 3 and 4. They've been dancing to the live music in the Piazza all cruise long.

Photo 7: the pool deck decorated for the island night party